Amazing Tales from Centropolis

[Shayuri]

"Oh. Nice. Trick."

With each word, another Kitsune appeared, forming a box around Warp. They glanced at one another and giggled, then evaporated, leaving only the original behind.

"As for what you can do to help...yeah, I guess we SHOULD have some kind of tryout or something. Tournament-style elimination bouts!"

The word 'FIGHT' appeared in red flaming letters between herself and Warp, then puffed into smoke.

"Or, I don't know. Jumping jacks or something. I don't think we actually have any specific RULES for bringing new people in. Hang on a second."

Silver Streak could feel the unseen cellphone cross over from over by the far wall to where Kitsune was standing, as she produced a fancy-looking Star Trek style communicator from a pouch on her belt. It made little chirping noises as it opened.

"Hey, 'The Shadow,'" Kitsune said into the phone. "You want to join me and Galatea down in the lobby? There's...a dimensional portal opening and killer robots are spilling out or something. Oh, and your kid's here. She says she's not a kid though. Thanks."

The communicator closed, and Streak realized the cellphone was moving back away from Kitsune.

"I figure this is something all the Centurions should be in on," Kitsune explained to the stone woman.

 

[KahlessNestor]

Kimberly Black
Human, Inc.
Friday, February 10, 2017/9:15 AM
Round 0

"I am new in town. I've been working independently for a few weeks now. Yeah, I don't seem to run into news folks. But someone snapped a pic of me and is selling a poster of it on Superfly,” Princess said.

Kim chuckled. “Yeah, I’ve seen some of the things on that website.” Her father didn’t like it, of course.

Kim looked down as the little fox jumped about for attention.

"Er, do you know this talking fox?" Princess asked.

Kim chuckled. “I might have an idea…” She looked around, though she didn’t expect to see Kitsune.

Save against fox illusion: 1D20 = [5] = 5

Kim looked up as someone else entered the lobby, as well. He pulled up short staring at Princess Starlight.

“Yeah, she has that effect on people,” Kim said with amusement.

The guy was followed up soon after by a woman in a grey skin tight suit with a large black metal glove on one hand.

The receptionist called upstairs.

"Mr. Shadow... it appears we have had an authorized teleporter enter the lobby area just now."

“Be right down,” Caleb said. She didn’t sound agitated, so Caleb quickly pulled on his black clothes and coat and pulled up his hood, hiding his face with shadows, before he stepped into his closet to shadowstep downstairs.

Kitsune -- or more likely an illusion -- appeared next to the teleporter, and Kim waved to the older young woman.

The elevator doors opened and Galatea joined them. “Hey, Gal!” Kim waved.

Princess Starlight gushed and did a little dance at the appearance of the Centurions, and Kim laughed.

"Hey, 'The Shadow,'" Kitsune said into the phone. "You want to join me and Galatea down in the lobby? There's...a dimensional portal opening and killer robots are spilling out or something. Oh, and your kid's here. She says she's not a kid though. Thanks."

The maintenance closet behind Kitsune opened and The Shadow stepped out and stepped up behind Kitsune. “Why are you telling everyone who my kid is?” he growled at the girl.

Kim rolled her eyes. “Hey, Dad.”

“Why aren’t you in school?”

“Um...cancelled. Superstorm.”

“Go upstairs.”

“I was going to see if Aunt Ginny wanted to take me shopping for my debutante dress.”

Shadow, pressed his fingers to his eyes. “I don’t want you around Virginia Diamond,” he said.

Kim glared at him. “I’m going to my debutante party!” she insisted.

“We’ll discuss it later. Not in front of strangers…” He looked at Princess Starlight, the Silver Streak, and Warp.

“Ongoing argument,” Kim explained to them, looking crossly at her father and crossing her arms across her chest.

Caleb sighed. “So you want to help?” he asked the newcomers.

 

[pathfinderq1]

Warp glanced at the Shadow and his... daughter, was it? She had to refrain from shaking her head. Some things, it seemed, were universal- or nearly so. She had never know her own father, but she wasn't that many years removed from the same kinds of "discussion" with her mother.

And the time those discussions ended was when the daughter simply stopped talking about things with her parents, and just started DOING the things. That was how it had ended for her, and why she never talked about her 'hero' activities with her mom.

All of that, though, was for another time- and it meant that they would have to survive whatever happened tomorrow.

She took a half "Step" forward. "I definitely want to help. I think we all do," she said, looking back again at the Princess and Silver Streak.

"But I'm not really so keen on the whole 'fighting' thing. That is why I wasn't here four days ago, or six months ago, for that matter. I mean, I know there pretty much always has to be some level of violence- and I'll bet that goes, like, triple for tomorrow... But needless violence creates an imbalance in one's karma. Karma is a heavy burden- and I like to travel light."

This time when she paused, she looked down at her feet. "What I mean is, I'll fight if I HAVE to- but I don't LIKE it. Sort of related- this crazy guy said he is going to drop his 'demonstration' right here in the middle of the city tomorrow. Has anyone thought about evacuations?" She waved a hand around, obviously indicating the massive towers of the city center. "I mean how many people live within a block, two blocks, even five blocks of here? Even if we can handle whatever he throws- IF- the innocent casualties could be enough to qualify as a disaster..."

 

[Shayuri]

"Evacuations are handled by city hall and the police," Kitsune dismissed with a flick of her tails. "We pretty much handle the, uh...you know...fighting." The fox mask grinned wolfishly.

 

[KahlessNestor]

]

Kimberly Black and The Shadow
Human, Inc.
Friday, February 10, 2017/9:15 AM
Round 0

“Life doesn’t much care what you think about karma,” the Shadow told Warp. “It doesn’t usually give you a choice. Is it better karma to let people die because you don’t want to get your hands dirty?” he asked the young woman.

Kim glanced over at Kitusne. “So I guess that Nicholas Sparks marathon is off tonight?” she asked the foxy superhero.

 

[Shayuri]

"Oh, if he makes me miss NickSpar, I will SHOW this guy an apocalypse!" promised Kitsune. "Keep the Tivo warm for me!"

 

[jmucchiello]

Princess Starlight stops hopping up and down long enough to talk, though she fails not to speak quickly in her buoyant, high-pitched manner. "So are we going to do anything today to prepare for tomorrow? Not that we have any idea what Doc Apoc is going do. RIght? Or do you have some idea? I suppose you could and should not dismiss that out of hand. But as I can see so far we don't know what Doc Apoc plans to do at all so it feels like we should prepare but then the question is prepare for what? People say they are prepared for anything but you can't really be prepared for everything at least not all at the same time." She actually pauses to take a breath and it can be seen in her face that she just realized how fast she was talking and blushes in the most cute manner possible. "Um," she says deliberately slower. "Now what?"

 

[pathfinderq1]

Warp paused for just a moment, "watching" Kitsune first, then the Shadow, then Princess Starlight.

After a second or so, waiting to see if anyone else wanted to chime in, she took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. "Listen, please don't take any of this the wrong way. I'm really sorry if I'm not sounding like I'm fully on board here, but this is all really pretty new for me- if this wasn't happening right here, right now, I don't know if this costume would have ever seen the light of day. I wasn't sure if this was the right path for me."

"But now I'm sure. And I'm here." She turned to the Shadow for a moment. "And popular word says you are kind of the jefe, the guy in charge- so I'm willing to do what you tell me."

Then she turned back to Kitsune. "But I want you to understand where I'm coming from- the better we know each other, the better we can work together, and we don't have a lot of time to figure these things out. The question you answered wasn't the question that I asked. I figured we wouldn't have to HANDLE the evacuations- I wanted to know if people had THOUGHT about them. I don't want to get out of bed every morning thinking about who I'm going to beat up to make the world a better place. I want to think about who I'm going to help, who I can save."

Turning to the Shadow again, she kept talking. "And I know that total non-violence isn't the way. Choosing NEVER to fight when you are confronted, that doesn't magically solve everything. It legitimizes those who use force to empower themselves, if no one will use force in return. And it transfers the burden of karma to all the innocents who pay the price for your choice not to fight when you could, which is an even heavier burden, and harder to lay aside. I just wanted to be clear that I don't enjoy it, and I hate for it to be the first choice. I'll fight when I have to- or, like I said- when you tell me to. Boss."

Lastly she turned to Princess Starlight. "And maybe I've run my mouth way past where I ought to. Like she asked- do you have any idea who this guy is? What he is really planning? Or what he really wants? Private kingdom seems a little odd- why not pick Florida or sunny California? My guess would be the Unobtainium mines... But I mean you guys have all this great stuff" (Waving her hand around at the tower) "Don't you have some secret mega-computer or hidden bad guy database or whatever?"

[sblock= OOC]
>So I rolled a default Interaction (Deception? Persuasion maybe? Whatever) for all this speechifying, 1d20+3= 20; roll http://www.coyotecode.net/roll/lookup.php?rollid=152007

-The upshot to this is that anyone who can hit a DC 20 Insight can tell that she means what she is saying- especially about being sincere in her desire to help. But it also means that you could figure out she is probably fairly young- and she has been taking courses in philosophy, psychology, and public speaking...

>Also: I'm trying to set into her character here. Please feel free to slap me down if I'm running my mouth too much. Maybe she will find that she LOVES violence after all...
[/sblock]

 

[Shayuri]

"Ah, it's fine," Kitsune assures Warp. "So with evacuations, we haven't actually had a LOT of experience with them, but the way I understand it is that the city police and sheriff and MAYBE even national guard really handle that, depending on the exact circumstances. We would get called in to help if they needed something we could provide, but the reality is that they have a lot of experience and training doing that kind of thing without super powers bungling around, so they kind of prefer to keep us out unless there's something specific we can do."

She shrugs. "Maybe if you have powers that are really good for evacuations, that'll change though. You'll want to talk to the boss about that."

Kitsune inhaled a deep breath, her chest inflating comically huge before shrinking back to normal as she exhaled mightily.

"Philosophy stuff."

Then she shrugged. "Anyway yeah, this Apocalypse guy has me pretty suspicious. Because he doesn't really seem to want a private kingdom. He's insisting everyone get out, remember? So all he wants is the city. Empty. For a hundred miles around. I guess he might be bringing his own people in...but that seems like a loooooooot of trouble to go through. We've done some looking around already in the computer and haven't found much."

"Personally, I think this big demonstration of his is just as much about distracting us and keeping us from doing legwork as it is about intimidating people into giving into his demands. Also, possible misdirection."

She vanished, and reappeared over by the building's front window...her image now corresponding perfectly with the location of her cellphone, Streak might note.

"A bit of a specialty of mine. I'm wondering if we shouldn't be looking everywhere BUT the spot he's telling us to look."

 

[jonathonhawke]

"I'm pretty fast," say Streak. Then, in the blink of an eye, he's several yards away. "I can cover a lot of ground quickly."